Based on the exhibitions featured at the museum during the 2014-2015 academic year and on works from the permanent collection, JCSM issued a call for written work responding to individual works of art experienced firsthand at JCSM.
Graduate and undergraduate students were encouraged to submit writing of any length, from single poems or personal essays to short stories or seminar papers.
The students selected received prize money and an opportunity to present their work to the public during a museum program. Additionally, students added an online publication credit to their resumes.
We are featuring the winner’s work on the museum website. Please take a moment to read our guest posts from this year’s student writing competition. The museum will once again issue a call for papers for Fall 2015. For more information, contact Scott Bishop, curator of education and university liaison at 334.844.7014.
Untitled Personas by Caroline Barr
Inspired by “Untitled” (groups of drawings/various media on library cards/collection of Molly Day) from “John Himmelfarb: TRUCKS.”
- Slide around my gears, slip
tighter so I might turn
blue in your grip. Bump
my lips across the cobblestone.
- They finger paint their names
into my ribcage, sometimes scratching
deep enough to wake me,
engines growling in the dark.
- My eyes burn with pine stacked
against my skull with heavy whispers
asking for home, their pulpy
wounds fresh and weeping sap.
- Tack on to me like a fly
making love to a frog’s tongue,
become part of my collection
you beautiful whirring thing.
- I’m building you a house
of beeswax where you’ll sleep
in honeycomb tombs, sink
your teeth into the concrete.
- If you look close enough,
you can see Bogart in my
reflection. Press this button
and I’ll sing you raspy like Bacall.
- They’ve taken me away
to your museum, a relic
to sit waiting in spotlight,
waiting for your ignition.
- You called my name and now
I’m roaring toward your oblivion—
come closer, I’ll try not
to rip the peach of your skin.
- We’ve never been so normal
splashing through puddles made
pink with yesterday’s tulips,
pink with the acetone of you.
- Sweat clings rung to rung
as wet leaves brush against our
aluminum, sticking like
the fish scales in the backseat.
- Let me smother you,
suffocate your veins so
maybe your last green
breath would kiss me full.
- This is the resting place
of glimmer and rust warm
against our rubber noses
touching in quiet tightness.
